The Love Poetry of Suleiman the Magnificent
A man sat by his room, with a pen in hand and a bottle of ink placed cautiously to his side. He wrote patiently, guiding each stroke with a deft brush, moving slowly up and down, right to left. For hours he anguished over each individual word. He would pause after each hour, staring at his work before throwing the parchment aside and trying anew. For the entire night, this scene played out over and over, until at last, with the breaking of the sun's earliest light, the man placed his pen down and stared at what had transpired. And so, the piece read:
Throne of my lonely niche, my wealth, my love, my moonlight.
My most sincere friend, my confidant, my very existence, my Sultan, my one and only love.
The most beautiful among the beautiful ...
My springtime, my merry faced love, my daytime, my sweetheart, laughing leaf ...
My plants, my sweet, my rose, the one only who does not distress me in this room ...
My Istanbul, my karaman, the earth of my Anatolia
My Badakhshan, my Baghdad and Khorasan
My woman of the beautiful hair, my love of the slanted brow, my love of eyes full of misery ...
I'll sing your praises always
I, lover of the tormented heart, Muhibbi of the eyes full of tears, I am happy.
Such were the words of a man named Muhibbi, the pen name of the 10th Sultan and 2nd Caliph of the Ottoman Empire: Suleiman the Magnificent. On today’s special article series of the Nomads and Empires show, we’re going to talk about a series of topics related to Valentine's Day. Sort of. I mean, Ottoman geopolitics, Crimean slave policy, and poetry all somewhat relate to romance right?
The Early Ottoman Context
Suleiman the Magnificent, as we may know, is a big figure in history. While most people might not know about the intricate details of Middle Eastern or Islamic history, I think many are familiar with the name of Suleiman. There are probably hundreds of videos and documentaries on events like the Siege of Vienna or the Ottoman-Safavid Wars. From Europe to the Hejaz, from North Africa to the Tigris and Euphrates, Suleiman had led the Ottoman Empire into a zenith of glory and prestige. At its height, Suleiman ran an empire that ruled over 25 million individuals, stretching a territorial length of 1,800,041 kilometers squared.
However, Suleiman’s empire was not the project of a single man. Much of his groundwork had been laid by ancestors like Mehmet II, Murad I, and his own father Selim I. Furthermore, Suleiman was supported by a vast array of individuals, including his Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and countless bureaucrats, generals, and officials. It would be easy for us to assume that a patriarchy of court members led the Empire to its heights. That’s certainly what popular history has us believe.
It might be astounding to some that none, however, were more important than Suleiman’s wife, Hurrem Sultan, known in other names as Roxalana, and perhaps nothing better encapsulates Suleiman’s relationship with her than the poem we’ve just heard. Suleiman, as we may know, was more than just a conqueror and a statesman. He was a renowned patron of the arts and he funded many projects, ranging from architecture to poetry. Under Suleiman’s rule, the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem would be renovated, the Kaaba in Mecca would be fixed, and a number of prominent writers like Ali Çelebi would rise to prominence in this time.
Like many other Ottoman rulers, Suleiman was a poet himself.1 All Ottoman Sultans would use a pen name for their poetry. Mehmet II, the famed conqueror of Constantinople, used the name ‘Avni, meaning “the helper” in his poems, while Osman II was known by Farisi.2 In Suleiman’s case, he chose the name Muhibbi. Muhibbi comes from the Arabic root “hub”, meaning “to love” and adding the M sound in front of a verb creates a doer of an action. So, in this case muhibbi simply means “the lover.”
And so, for this special series of articles dedicated to Valentine’s Day, I want to dive a little deeper into the poem’s specifics and really talk about the significance of these passages. Suleiman’s poem should not be looked at in the same light as say a teenager’s confession to a crush. At the same time, its meaning is a little bit more intimate than the poems of other Ottoman Sultans. The words point to a deeper significance, underscoring just how important Hurrem Sultan was to Suleiman. The poem encapsulates the total history of the Ottoman Empire from its roots to its height, and highlights the geopolitical realities facing the empire during Suleiman’s reign. To use such metaphors for his queen is a testament to how he viewed her.
To that end, I want to analyze the sixth and seventh stanzas specifically. In these two lines, Suleiman compares Hurrem Sultan to a number of locations that correspond directly to important areas in Ottoman geography. These are, in reverse order: Khorosan, Baghdad, Badakhshan, Anatolia, Karaman, and Istanbul. To really understand Suleiman’s metaphoric representation here, I think we need to assess each location individually and glimpse into the significance of each place for the Ottomans at large. In fact, as we dive into each of these geographical areas, we’ll learn about more than just metaphoric motifs, for each of these locations has a geopolitical weight that extends beyond Hurrem Sultan or Suleiman the Magnificent.
But first, let’s take a look at a more holistic overview of the Ottoman Empire just before Suleiman’s reign. The Ottomans started as a small Turkic Beylik, a rump state that emerged after the collapse of the Sultanate of Rum in 1308. Most people place the official start of the Ottomans in 1326 CE, when Ertugrul captured the city of Bursa. Based in the northwestern corner of the Anatolian Peninsula, the Ottomans were mostly shielded from threats like the Mongols and other ambitious beyliks.
The Ottomans expanded both eastward and westward. Throughout the late 1300s, Ottoman forces expanded into the Balkans and slowly conquered the various Anatolian beyliks. After a brief period of instability and civil war in the early 1400s, the Ottomans under leaders like Mehmid I and Murad II were able to rebound and keep the state united. In 1453, Mehmet II led the Ottomans in the consequential conquest of Constantinople, while his grandson Selim I would push forward against the Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt. In the aftermath of the Ottoman-Mamluk War, Ottoman control effectively stretched from the Balkans to Egypt, while Ottoman influence extended beyond these borders. For instance, the empire had actually been active in deterring Portugese activity in India. In western Sumatra, the Ottomans sent troops to support the Sultanate of Aceh.
Throughout the 1400s, Ottoman governance and political structures were changing. According to the historian Arthur Cotterrell, “the steady expansion of the Ottoman dominion obliged the sultans to devise a system of government that would maintain their armies and at the same time administer the conquered peoples. Inevitably this moved the Turks farther away from their Central Asian roots, despite the continued arrival of thousands more nomads driven westwards first by the Mongols and then Tamerlane.” Like many other Central Asian nomadic conquerors, the trappings of sedentary life gave way to a syncretic system of governance. As the Ottomans conquered their neighbors, they slowly began the process of imperializing their own institutions. The Ottomans would, for instance, style themselves with Persian titles, calling themselves “Padishah.” This Persian influence would seep into many areas of Ottoman imperial culture, with Ottoman literary and poetic culture using Persian terms and styles.
Under Suleiman, the Ottomans continued to develop these institutions and push their political power. However, I don’t feel the need to go into details on Suleiman, his actions, and his achievements. There’s enough literature and media discussing him. We have treasure troves of primary and secondary sources commending and condemning the Sultan. Less however is said about his other half. Let’s now take a look at the focus of this episode and dive into the life and history of Hurrem Sultan, the wife of Suleiman, who in an earlier life was known as Roxalana. For now, until she becomes Suleiman’s wife, that is the name we’ll be calling her by.
The Steppe Origins of Roxalana
Unlike Suleiman, Roxalana’s early life is essentially undocumented but there are a few points that we know to some degree of certainty and others that we can reasonably estimate on. She was born sometime in 1502 CE somewhere in Ruthenia, a polity in Eastern Poland or western Ukraine. Between 1510-1520, Roxalana was kidnapped by Mongol-Turkic raiders living on the Pontic steppe. And then she appears in the slave markets of Konstantinyye.
That’s pretty much all we know about her early life. Again, we lack any primary source detailing her origins, so conclusive facts about who she was, what she believed in, and what she experienced during her time as a captive are impossible to find out. Even sources for her later life can be sporadic. There are some letters and archival material from Venetian diplomats. We have Spanish, French, Polish, and Arabic sources that mention her. However, it’s clear that many contemporary writers only talked about Hurrem Sultan when she was needed and few wrote directly about her. According to a modern writer who attempted to construct a biography of Roxalana, “apart from fragmentary mention of Hurrem over the following fifteen years and the occasional letter she wrote to Suleiman, there is little word.”
Despite these difficulties, Roxalana’s early life does follow broader historical trends and we can probably use those ideas for some speculation on our part. For instance, it’s probably likely that Roxalana lived somewhere in western Ukraine. There is a Polish-Lithuanian geographic term known as the “Wild Fields” that correspond to that particular area. The Wild Fields were notorious. They were an area of the Pontic Steppe home to the remnant khanates of the Golden Horde, which included the Nogai and Crimean Khanate. Living in this area was, to put it mildly, rough. Villages in the Wild Fields were subject to regular raids and attacks by these nomadic steppe groups. Villagers were frequently captured and sold as slaves on markets in the Crimean Peninsula. From the 1500s until 1769, these raids were just another part of life in these lands and we can see how the cossacks, for instance, emerged as a defense mechanism in response to these attacks.
Roxalana was probably just one of the many villagers captured by these Mongol-Turkic raiders. Indeed, I want to take a moment to look at the scale of these attacks. Some scholars estimate that between the 1500s to 1700s, over 2 million individuals had been captured and sold into slavery. This trade was immensely rewarding and had a long history; we can think back to the Mamluk Sultanate and their trade with the Crimean Peninsula during the Mongol invasions. Such trade continued to flourish during Ottoman times. Various khans received around 10-20% of a slave’s value, and many leaders were incentivized to raid frequently, oftentimes leading to political clashes and disputes as nomadic group attacked nomadic group.
It is interesting to note that political developments during Suleiman’s adolescence actually impacted the raiding practices of these khanates. For a while, the Crimean Khanate had allied themselves with the Principality of Muscovy in their fight against the Golden Horde. As such, Crimean Khans were welcome to invade the lands of Ukraine which were controlled by the Principality of Lithuania. In 1502 the Golden Horde collapsed. Sensing no further need for the alliance, the Crimean Khanate dissolved its agreement with Muscovy and allied with Lithuania in 1512, which led to a decrease in raids in Ukraine and an increase in raids in Russia. We can probably guess that Roxalana was taken sometime in this decade of 1502-1512 because the Crimean Khanate was more incentivized to raid this area due to their political allegiances.3
From there, Roxalana would probably have been taken to the city of Caffa at the southern edge of the Crimean Peninsula. Caffa was one of the largest exporters of slaves and it most likely was the largest on the Black Sea. From there, Roxalana would have been taken to the slave markets of Konstantiyye, where her slave masters probably would have paid an import or customs tax to an Ottoman official. We actually have direct records from the 16th and 17th centuries showing the taxes merchants had to pay on slaves that they were trying to sell. These records actually show us that slaves were taxed twice, with the slave seller paying a half of the import tax and the purchaser paying the other half. In direct numbers for the 16th century, this meant that individuals on both ends were paying 105 silver coins for a total tax of 210.
Now the interesting part is that Ottoman policy taxed slaves differently depending on a number of metrics. If a slave was under 7 years old for instance, the tax was lowered to around 75 silver coins. Another source from 1569 describes tax policies for the city of Akkirman with specific regard to slaves coming from Caffa. “For a slave who has a title deed arriving from Caffa, a customs will be charged. For slaves who have attained puberty, the tax will be 78 [silver coins]; for those between the age of 7 and puberty, 39 [silver coins]; and for those under the age of 7, 20 [silver coins].” In Konstantiyye, the import tax for slaves was substantial, and although the records do not tell us exactly how many slaves were sold, we do know that in the year 1589, the Ottomans made around 100,000 silver pieces just from slave trade taxes.4
After having paid these taxes, these slave owners would’ve taken Roxalana to one of the many slave markets in the city. We know that these markets emerged early into Ottoman history and we have first-hand accounts of these from the 1500s. For instance, the French geographer Nicolas de Nicolay gives us a description of an Konstantiyye market in 1526. “There they sell an infinite number of poor Christian slaves of all ages and of both sex, in the same manner in which they sell horses… The slaves are displayed completely naked so that the purchaser may more easily determine their faults and imperfections… I went there three times, once I saw in one corner of the market a Hungarian girl, 13 or 14 years old, who was finally sold to an old Turkish merchant for the price of 34 ducats.” These places were not for the faint of heart, and the living conditions many slaves faced were appalling. An Englishman named William Lithgow wrote in 1610 “I have seen men and women as usually sold here in markets, as horses and other beasts are with us… At last we fell upon a Dalmatian widow, whose pitiful looks and spriking tears struck my soul almost to the death of compassion; whereupon I grew earnest for her relief… she is bought… her price 36 ducats.”5
It’s likely that Roxalana faced similar conditions. As we lack primary sources on her directly, it's probable that she wasn’t from any significant or royal family. She would’ve been kept in the same stalls and sold on the same markets as hundreds of other slaves. In any other timeline, Roxalana would’ve been sold to a merchant and lived a robbed and obscured life in history. However, Roxalana’s fortunes would be different. Legends state that Suleiman’s friend and future vizier Ibrahim found Roxalana and purchased her as a gift to Suleiman.
It is at this point where Roxalana, a slave from the lands of Ruthenia, enters the Ottoman court of Suleiman the Magnificent. She would’ve been young at this time, probably in her early to mid-teens by our best estimates. For a while, Roxalana probably lived as a servant for the Ottoman court and we know that her earliest days were at the imperial laundry. Legends state that Roxalana was noticed by Suleiman one day while she was cleaning clothes. She had been singing a song from her native land of Ruthenia and a young Suleiman was struck by her voice. He turned to her and spoke in her native Slavic language. Some believe that her intelligence and wit left an impression on the young man, who promptly fell in love with her after that.
Shortly after Suleiman took the Ottoman throne in 1520, Roxalana was admitted into the imperial harem. Over the next four or five years, Roxalana would achieve a meteoric rise through the court. She would give birth to five children in this time, including the future sultan Selim II, a practice that was rather taboo at the time. It should be noted that up until this point, Ottoman imperial policy had been to allow concubines only a single son, ensuring that all children of different mothers would have equal chances to ascend to the throne.6 This was clearly a break from tradition. Soon, she was being called Hurrem, meaning “the cheerful one” in Persian, and so in a sense, we get the death of Roxalana and the birth of Hurrem Sultan.
Now, this isn’t to say that Hurrem Sultan had it easy and that her life was now smooth sailing. The Ottoman harem is notorious for its politics and devious machinations. There are a number of stories of concubines and wives poisoning rival sons to secure the throne for their own lines. This was certainly the case here for Hurrem Sultan, who fought a bitter rivalry with Suleiman’s other concubine, Mahidevran. According to the Venetian ambassador Bernardo Navagero, the two women had come into direct blows once, with Mahidevran attacking Hurrem with her nails. The incident decidedly pushed Suleiman to side further with Hurrem, leaving Mahidevran even farther out into the sidelines. However, criticisms of Hurrem Sultan remained. The rise of this unknown concubine undoubtedly attracted unwanted attention within the Ottoman court. Throughout her life, many whispered rumors that she alone had plotted against individuals like Ibrahim Pasha and that she was a devious woman using sleight of hand methods.7
However, these critiques I think speak volumes as to the kind of woman Hurrem Sultan was. Despite her circumstances, she was able to rise to one of the highest positions in the Ottoman court, and she fought tooth and nail to maintain her position. With a number of hostile figures on all ends of Suleiman’s court, one can only imagine the ingenuity and intelligence needed to just survive the day to day. One primary source from 1536 paints a very vivid picture of Hurrem Sultan. Here a Genoese diplomat gives us a description that encapsulates her utter grander:
When I entered the kiosk in which she lives, I was received by many eunuchs in splendid costume blazing with jewels, and carrying scimitars in their hands. They led me to an inner vestibule, where I was divested of my cloak and shoes and regaled with refreshments… All the walls of the kiosk in which she lives are covered with the most beautiful Persian tiles and the floors are of cedar and sandalwood, which give out the most delicious odor... At the entrance to the apartment in which the Sultana consented to receive me, the elderly lady who had accompanied me all the time made me a profound reverence, and beckoned to two girls to give me their aid; so that I passed into the presence of the Sultana leaning upon their shoulders. The Sultana, who is a stout but beautiful young woman, sat upon silk cushions striped with silver, near a latticed window overlooking the sea. Numerous slave women, blazing with jewels, attended upon her, holding fans, pipes for smoking, and many objects of value.8
According to this diplomat, Hurrem Sultan was shrewd and quite observant. She had, “asked many questions concerning our country and our religion, of which she knew nothing whatever, and which I answered as modestly and discreetly as I could.”9
Evidently, Hurrem Sultan displayed an intelligent acumen and a strong royal presence, facets not overlooked by Suleiman. In 1533, Hurrem Sultan was officially married to Suleiman, making her the first consort, in fact the first slave, to ever be the Sultana of the Ottoman Empire.10 The wedding was an incredible affair, described by one account as being “splendid beyond all record.”11 The account goes further, explaining that:
“At night the principal streets are gaily illuminated and there is much music and feasting… In the old Hippodrome a great tribune is set up, the place reserved for the Empress and her ladies screened with a gilt lattice. Here Roxelana and the Court attended a great tournament in which both Christian and [Muslim] knights were engaged and tumblers and jugglers and a procession of wild beasts and giraffes with necks so long they, as it were, touched the sky.”12
Unlike other Ottoman consorts who were forced out of the imperial court after their sons came of age, Hurrem Sultan remained physically and politically relevant.13 We have a number of buildings that were patronized by her, including several soup kitchens (or “waqfs”), mosques, hammams, and others. One of the most significant works commissioned by Hurrem Sultan was the Haseki Sultan Complex, a külliye in Konstantiyye that included a mosque, a soup kitchen, several schools, and even a hospital,14 and in fact the hospital is still in use today.15 With all of this said, I think we have a pretty good idea of what kind of person Hurrem Sultan was and a small understanding as to why Suleiman’s poem described her the way that it did. There’s more that I want to say about Hurrem Sultan and the kind of person she was, but we’ll save that for the end. For now, we’ve set a good bit of context for us before we dive into some of the specific geographies Suleiman mentions in his poem. Keep an eye out for the next article, which I’ll be releasing tomorrow!
Esin Atil, The Age of Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent (National Gallery of Art: New York, 1987), 24.
Elias J. W. Gibb, Ottoman Poems: Translated into English Verse in the Original Forms, with Introduction, Biographical Notices, and Notes (Trubner & Co., Ludgate Hill E.C.: London, 1882), 99.
Eizo Matsuki, “The Crimean Tatars and their Russian-Captive Slaves: An Aspect of Muscovite-Crimean relations in the 16th and 17th Centuries,” The Mediterranean World (2006).
Alan W. Fisher, “The Sale of Slaves in the Ottoman Empire: Markets and State Taxes on Slave Sales, Some Preliminary Considerations,” Bershi Bilimer - Humanities 6 (1978).
Ibid.
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire (Basic Books: New York, 2006), 133.
Galina Yermolenko, “Roxolana: ‘The Greatest Empress of the East,’” The Muslim World 95 (2005).
Eva March Tappan, ed., The World’s Story: A History of the World in Story, Song, and Art, (Houghton Mifflin: Boston, 1914), Vol. VI: Russia, Austria-Hungary, The Balkan States, and Turkey, pp. 509-510.
Ibid.
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 132.
Ibid.
Ayse B. Kayahan, “Sultans of Philanthropy,” Daily Sabah, June 23, 2014, https://www.dailysabah.com/feature/2014/06/23/sultans-of-philanthropy
“Haseki Research Training and Hospital,” Breast Centres Network, May 23, 2019, https://www.breastcentresnetwork.org/Breast+Unit+Directory/Turkey/Haseki+Research+and+Training+Hospital/4,9,1420,1
The poem so shamelessly advertised as written for Hurrem in fact is dedicated to Ibrahim - Suleiman's beloved number 1. The translation is horribly loose, has nothing to do with the original. Suleiman never wrote the word "woman" in his poem and compared his beloved to Aziz (biblical Potiphar) and to prophet Yusuf (Joseph) who personify in Islam exclusively male power and beauty. Both biblical characters are connected with Egypt where Ibrahim achieved splendid success. This line is omitted from the translation. There exists one more version of the poem where Suleiman compares his beloved to the Sasanian king Khosrow (Husrev) and the seljuk sultan Kubad (Kayqubad). It's funny and sad at the same time how hard people try to conсeal Suleiman's bisexuality.))
That poem is about Ibrahim Pasha, not Hurrem